SI Vault: 50 of the greatest sentences in Sports Illustrated history

Over almost 62 years and 3,166 issues, Sports Illustrated has built a reputation as the pinnacle of American sportswriting. Do we deserve that distinction? Decide for yourself by perusing any of the roughly 80,000 stories available for free in the SI Vault, which debuted last week. To support our case, we submit these 50 sentences, which are among the best the magazine has ever published.

"What you see before you could be any 44-year-old man slurping any bowl of cereal and watching any baseball game on TV, except that the man is a millionaire, his picture is on the cereal box and it's a little early for breakfast."–On Deck For the Big Knock, Rick Reilly, Aug. 19, 1985

"For the moment, political and financial woes--not to mention the malaise that has beset baseball in recent seasons--were all forgotten as three generations of McGwires shared their joy in front of us: John, leaning on his cane, a man who could not play baseball because of a childhood bout with polio; Mark, hugging his chubby-cheeked son in those arms as massive as bridge cables; and Matthew, grinning wildly, one of many who fell in love with baseball for the first time in this special summer."–Record Smasher, Tom Verducci, Sept. 14, 1998

"Or, to put it another way, can there possibly be a place in the good doctor's delicate and gentlemanly game for the Darryl Dawkins 'Doctor Naismith, Get Outta the Waysmith, There Are Peach Basket Splinters All Over Your Facesmith' slam dunk?"–'A Chess Game with Soul’, John Papanek, Oct. 20, 1980

"IT BEARS mentioning, now that Michael Sam has revealed himself as the most intriguing challenge the NFL has ever faced, that sports used to serve as America's proving ground for social change—not vice versa."–Moment of Truth, SL Price, Feb. 17, 2014

"Fans who at one time approached their sports heroes shyly and tentatively now swarm at them like angry hornets, elbowing past security guards, overrunning small children, tugging on jacket sleeves in the manner of Calcutta beggars*—their tongues ready to lash out with venom should the athlete dare to excuse himself before signing autographs for them."–Back Off!, E.M. Swift, Aug. 13, 1990

"It is always the punch a fighter does not see that hurts the most, and the little girl was so sweet and innocent-looking, standing shyly at her mother's side, that there was no way Joe Frazier could have seen it coming."–The Fight’s Over Joe, William Nack, Sept. 30, 1996

"This is how a guy who has a name like a British aristocrat's, who's small enough to hang from your rearview mirror and who says his greatest catch was of Michael Jackson's hat in a concert crowd lunged into stardom in a single afternoon: Desmond Howard brought a hundred thousand spectators to the swooning point, reduced his Michigan teammates to wiggling their fingers and chanting 'hocus-pocus' and made Notre Dame's fleetest defenders look as if they couldn't catch an elevator."–And How!, Sally Jenkins, Sept. 23, 1991

"That thing all those dock workers, meat packers, icemen and railroad brakemen started almost 60 years ago, and which came to be known as professional football, is about to lead us once again on a thundering off-tackle 29 Oley Bob P-Series Power Ride into the grinding teeth of a 56 Stub-I Rex Change defense, if not a 43 Purple Sloop." –Cracking the Language Barrier, Dan Jenkins, Sept. 13, 1976

"His fraternity mates Call him Blob-o, his neighborhood friends call him Whaleman and his wife has even called him Fat Boy, but no matter what you care to call him the U.S. has never had an amateur golf champion with quite the combination of competitive intensity and easygoing charm of big Jack Nicklaus."–One Whale of a Golfer, Ray Cave, Sept. 12, 1960

"It wasn't until midday Tuesday, about 67 hours after Dancer's Image had 'won' his Derby and 63 hours after specimen 3956 U began to change color, that the rest of the world was let in on the year's major sports story."–It Was a Bitter Pill, Whitney Tower, May 20, 1968

"On Sunday night, as word of Earnhardt's passing made its way through the stock car racing world, one sentiment was shared by the fans who won't have the chance to see him chase that elusive eighth title, the rivals who won't have a chance to swap paint with him again and the drivers who won't have a chance to share one more Victory Lane hug with their boss: This definitely was not fair."–Crushing, Mark Bechtel and Pete McEntegart, Feb. 26, 2001

"Remember the South, the magnolias and mockingbirds and muddy roads, and the cane poles and odor of wood smoke and somewhere, far off, the baying of hound dogs, and those big iron-eyed Southeastern Conference football players who kicked the hawg out of a ball on third down and just dared someone to try and score?"–The SEC Catches On, Pat Putnam, Oct. 13, 1969

"But the more she talks--about her disdain for losing, her appreciation for the charmed life she leads, her fondness for the perks of the job--the more convinced you are that the Serena Show will play on for a good long while."–The Serena Show, L. Jon Wertheim, May 26, 2003

"And then he will head to the Ritz to celebrate, still wearing his champagne-soaked T-shirt and shorts, a cigar protruding from his mouth, punch-drunk and pleased to take photos with all comers, no longer the child prodigy, no longer the petulant sidekick, no longer the selfish ball hog, no longer the Michael Jordan wannabe, but just Kobe Bryant, champion."–Satisfaction, Chris Ballard, June 22, 2009

"AND SO in the long shadows of an early evening in the 37th June since the last, the last, the last—and my God, the last—at a venerable place where hope and desperation had so often melted into painful defeat, history finally let go."–Holy…, Tim Layden, June 15, 2015

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